Scirocco R vs. Scirocco Storm

Fast VW time-travels to duel a long-dead ancestor

By Brettfraser / Wednesday, 18 May 2011 / Loading comments

Unlike your friends, you can't choose your relatives. They're just there. And it's pot luck if they happen to be good or bad, you like them or you don't.

So if you were a VW Scirocco R, rated by those in the know as on a par with folk heroes such as the Ford Focus RS, how chuffed would you be to discover that perched on your family tree was a relative to be truly proud of - the mk1 Scirocco Storm, a minor legend at the end of the 1970s and into the early 1980s, and a benchmark coupe for all its rivals. It would be like finding out you have a great uncle Clive who'd won a Victoria Cross in World War One. Sort of.

But other than a shared name, do these two Sciroccos have anything at all in common? Some defining characteristic that binds them; a familial link? That's what we're here to find out, here being a chunk of the Northants countryside that plays host to the Volkswagen press office's heritage fleet.

The 120-mile journey to get here has already revealed a few things about the latest Scirocco R. Firstly, it's a great long distance travelling companion, especially when optionally fitted with the six-speed and silky-shifting DSG gearbox. The most costly current Scirocco is effortlessly quick on dual carriageways and A-roads, whispering along on a plateau of torque that's 2500rpm wide and 258lb ft strong.

(Brett - we're feeling it, baby! Ed)

With its Adaptive Damping Control (ACC) set to 'Normal' the chassis soothes away most of the rough stuff, while cossetting Recaros, a first-rate driving position and efficient dual-zone climate control contribute to your sense of wellbeing.

Maybe you shouldn't care too much about such stuff in a sports car, but a traditional part of the original Scirocco's appeal was that it had a truly practical side, that you could spin a convincing case to the Other Half for owning one and actually be telling the truth. And when you drive the R, you can easily start plotting out a similar conversation in your mind.

Although the new Scirocco seats four, you seldom feel it's a large car, not by today's standards. Then you park alongside the original Scirocco. The difference isn't as holy crap dramatic as when you stick old and new Minis side-by-side, or Fiat 500s, but you do start wondering if the stylists over-inflated the design. The R is longer, wider and, most significantly, taller; the R's door mirrors sit almost as high as the older car's headrests. As ever, passive and active safety requirements effectively dictate that modern cars have to be gigantic, but the original Scirocco's tightly proportioned, compact lines make you wistful for simpler times.

Giorgetto Giugiaro, while he was working at ItalDesign, styled the first Scirocco and it's a tribute to the bloke's genius that 37 years after the car was launched it still looks tremendous, gets heads snapping in its direction wherever you take it. Its lines aren't overt or outrageous, it runs on comparatively tiny 13-inch alloys; isn't encumbered by towering tail spoilers or wheelarch extensions (although the Storm does sport a modest chin spoiler). But it has innate road presence.

The R is a different story. Even in colours other than the Viper green of our test car. Its nose is a gaping chasm of air ducts, its headlights styled to look aggressive and 'technical'. It rolls on 18-inch alloys with a check-me-out countenance. And yet compared with, say, a Subaru or Mitsubishi boasting 261bhp, the R's a visually restrained machine, if not exactly shy and retiring.

What's more, it does seem to have a family resemblance to the original. Not in the sense that it looks like a replica or a modern interpretation of a classic shape; it's more subliminal than that. Or maybe that's just what happens when you put two coupés with the same name together...

The mk1 Scirocco Storm you see here was first registered in June 1981 (and sold for the princely sum of £6687), at which stage its cabin design was already seven years old. Contemporary road tests commented on how Spartan it was beginning to look compared with more modern rivals of the day, although the ergonomics, driving position and build quality continued to garner praise.

To 21st century eyes the interior does look old, but not ancient. Sit behind the Storm's thin-rimmed, leather trimmed steering wheel, and there's a refreshing simplicity to the way everything's laid out. The radio and heating/ventilation controls are up high, next to instruments that are plain and easily read. There are no electric windows and while you can adjust the door mirrors from inside the car, it's a manual mechanism. Still, the Storm offered the luxury of leather upholstery and door cards; if you could live without the cow coverings, the Scirocco GTI offered the same mechanical package for less money.

The cabin of the £30,805 R is a telling example of how the marketing folk have encouraged us to expect and more of our cars, as a means to prising more money from our pockets. The modern Vee-Dub's interior features every convenience; dual-zone air-con, pumping stereo, sat-nav, information screens galore, electrically adjustable everything (except seats), Bluetooth phone compatibility, iPod connection, steering wheel mounted controls for the hi-fi, phone and info screens, and much more. Sure, you can, and do, end up using most of it, yet exposure to the stripped out world of the mk1 makes you ponder how much of it you'd really miss if it weren't there.

Exposure to the R's brand of performance, on the other hand, makes you fear that a drive in the Storm is going to feel merely quaint and that its remembered magic will be extinguished. Because the R is hellish quick - 155mph flat-out, 0-60mph in a claimed 6.2sec, the ton in less than 14sec. Mind you, the 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine's smooth, almost linear delivery subjectively takes some of the sting out of its actual rampaging pace. And please, Volkswagen, could you make it sound more inspiring. But there's no escaping the fact that when you're in the mood to rip the guts out of a demanding back road, the R makes a glittering weapon.

Then again, in its day so did the Storm. These days a top speed of 115mph and 0-60mph in 8.8sec are within the performance envelope of many a family turbodiesel, but let's not forget that the 1.6-litre fuel injected four-pot in the mk1 Scirocco mustered just 110bhp and 103lb ft of torque. Yet thanks to its modest kerb weight - 800kg, against 1353kg(!) for the DSG-equipped R - the pert coupé could deploy its meagre arsenal with surprising efficiency.

Even in a modern context the sohc motor has a robustly energetic soul from as little as 2000rpm, leading on to a vigorous mid-range and finally a spirited charge towards the 6700rpm red line. In fact, the power curve peaks at 6100rpm, but the engine is so willing to rev and does it so sweetly and sonorously, that you can't resist using every last revolution. And that's with an engine closing in on its first 100,000 miles.

Close examination of the speedo while all this is going on might reveal that the actual pace of the car is somewhat adrift of your perception of how quickly it's going, but I consider that a benefit rather than a drawback. The sensation of speed is doubtlessly enhanced by the clear vision that the Storm's slender A-pillars afford you, and the fact that you feel a little as though you're sitting on, rather than in, the car. In contrast, the R seats you low and its pillars are thick enough to support bridges, leaving you with the feeling that you're ensconced within a protective shell, akin to being in an armoured vehicle.

The joy of the Storm extends beyond the fact that it's a feisty playmate. Its unassisted steering is light (once you're moving), precise and fast, its chassis agile and faithful. In other words, it's lively and fun. Only its spongy brakes spoil the party a bit, but once you're aware of their shortcomings you make allowances in your driving style and think harder about every corner you approach.

There's less thinking to be done in the R. Approach speeds towards bends are much, much higher, because it has much more powerful anchors. Electronics successfully and unobtrusively curb any front-wheel shenanigans when 261bhp meets the exit to a sharp corner; electronics manipulate the actions of the dampers, too, together with the rorty downshifts of the DSG transmission. All these things are expertly managed, yet steal the edge, the rawness, that would turn the R from a great sports car into an exceptional one.

It's easy to emerge from the R being awestruck at just how quickly you can make it go. But probably just as impressive - no, make that more so - is the fact that within a few miles the 30-year old Scirocco ceases to feel like a classic car and becomes simply an entertaining, enjoyable and capable sports coupé that you would happily drive all day, every day.